Yes, yes, James Franco is going to Yale, the third stop on his tour of schools in the tri-state area -- before graduating from Columbia and going all Ivy League business, Franco had a brief fling with New York University. Amongst those precious days he spent at the latter, I was fortunate enough to share an elevator with him on the way to one of my classes. He was disheveled, kind of unwashed, but still pretty sexy. Most importantly, he spoke to me. He greeted me and asked me to press a button for his floor, and I pushed that button with more glamor, class, and subtle sex appeal than I have ever shown in any previous elevator-related activities. Throughout this enchanted encounter, I felt gifted and starstruck, but I didn't really feel like Franco had a way with words.
Apparently, he's out to prove me wrong because he has been hard at work on a collection of short stories called Palo Alto -- one of the stories, "Just Before the Black," was featured in the recent issue of Esquire. Here are some highlights: It features a dragon bong, has a 268-word sentence, and also has quite a collection of f-bombs. The story has received an array of reviews, and most suggest that Franco's fiction probably wouldn't have been published without the acting career. Ouch! Let's hope the book gets a little more enthusiasm. [Gawker]
Of course, Franco is nowhere near the first celebrity to take on fiction. Read on to see what writings other famous folk have produced, and what the critics had to say.
